Minorities Are Getting Screwed Out Of $1 Trillion, In 1 Chart

Youshouldn’tneedmoreevidence that racial inequities permeate every aspect of American society, but we’re going to give you one more piece anyway: The enormous earnings gap between white men and everyone else. This is what the result of hundreds of years of economic inequality looks like, in chart form:

The above chart comes via “The Business Case For Racial Equity,” a recent report by the Altarum Institute and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The contributors found that if the average income of minorities matched that of whites, total U.S. earnings would rise by nearly $1 trillion, or 12 percent.

Closing that gap would also benefit the economy as a whole. GDP would be 16 percent higher in 2030 if minorities made as much as whites, and 20 percent higher in 2050.

"The Great Gatsby Curve shows that children born in countries with high levels of income inequality will experience less economic mobility on average than children born in more equal countries," the <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2012/12/05/46817/5-charts-that-show-how-increasing-income-inequality-leads-to-less-opportunity/">Center for American Progress</a> reports.